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PHONETICS OF THE KAYOWE LANGUAGE. 


BY ALBERT S. GATSCHET. 

^ 

Read before the Cincinnati Me ting of the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, August 19,1881. 

In comparing the wording of a text, written or printed in 
any of the living languages, with the pronunciation of this 
text by the people speaking that language, we cannot deny 
that in the majority of instances the written characters con¬ 
vey to us the true pronunciation in a very imperfect manner 
only. These imperfections are due to several causes, and 
some of them are not always easy to overcome. The person 
transcribing a text worded in a strange language may experi¬ 
ence a difficulty in catching the true sound, for among many 
individuals there exists sound-deafness just as*well as there is 
color-blindness in optics. Inaccuracies of phonetic notation 
may also be due to a desire of restricting oneself to as few 
letters as possible, to avoid the casting of new types, and to 
smooth over phonetic difficulties; finally, to a lack of insight 
into the phonetic laws of the language. This last is preemi¬ 
nently the case when books printed in Indian languages are 
concerned; and in these pages I intend to show by the partic¬ 
ular instance of the Kayowe language some phonetic laws 
pervading the speech of a large portion, if not of all the 
American Indians. 

The ethnography of the equestrian and erratic tribe of the 
Kayowe is not a topic to enlarge upon in this article. Our 
closer acquaintance with this western tribe, whose ancient 
seats were in Eastern Colorado, near the topographic centre 
of the United States, does not date further back than half a 
century. In historical times they have always been the asso¬ 
ciates and fellow hunters of the more populous tribe of the 
Comanches, although they belong to a different linguistic fam¬ 
ily. The majority of the individuals of both tribes are now 
settled in the southwestern part of the Indian Territory. The 
Kayowe call themselves Ko-i, Koi; in the plural: Ko-igu, 
Go-igu. A Kayowe man is Ko-i kia, abbreviated Ko-i ki, a 
Kayowe woman: Ko-i mayi, abbreviated Ko-i ma; the Kayowe 
language: Ko-i tumkie. The Arapohos call the Kayowe: 





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Nitchihi. The western tribes use several gesture-signs to 
designate Kayowe Indians; one of them is as follows: “Place 
the right hand a short distance above the right side of the 
head, fingers and thumb separated and extended; shake it 
rapidly from side to side, giving it a slight rotary motion in 
doing so.” This sign means: rattle-brained. (G. Mallery, 
Collect, of Gesture-Signs, p. 302.) 

CONSONANTS. 

The sounds composing this language are exhibited to the 
best advantage by being tabulated systematically, the diph- 


thongs alone being omitted: 





Not aspirated. Aspirated. 

Spirants. 

Nasals. Trills. 

Vowels. 

Gutturals: 

: k, g x 

h,: 

n g 

e Gl 

Palatals: 


y 


L1 

Linguals: 

k, g 

sh 

1 


Dentals: 

t, d 

s, Z 

n, nd, ’dl 

1 

Labials: 

p, b f 

w 

m, mb 

uj 


In this phonetic series the most conspicuous facts are the 
prevalence of nasals, the absence of r, v, and of the palatals 
dsh and tch. The two last mentioned sounds are very fre¬ 
quent in most of the other languages of North America. The 
palatal series is represented by one consonant only; the gut¬ 
tural and dental series is fully represented, while in the labial 
series p, b and m are the only frequent consonantic sounds. 
F is found in some words only, and alternates there with p: 
pai or fai land , earth; probably it could be rendered just as 
correctly by v’h, vh. Other sounds not frequently met with 
are: sh, w; k, g, the two last being linguo-dentals produced 
by holding the inverted tip of the tongue against the hard 
palate and then pronouncing k or g. The aspirates th, dh, and 
the lingual spirant s are not among the sounds of this lan¬ 
guage. On the nasalizing process, see below. 

Among the spirants we notice the h and the so-called ar¬ 
rested sound (’_); both of them can be inserted at will between 
certain sounds of a word to produce some rhetorical effect: 
piutog’.o and pihu'doa to fly ; p’.a and pa moon; o-i and o-i’.h 
much; t’_a-i and ta-i, tai white; ha-apo and ha-a’.hpo to carry 
away; hii-iti and u-iti he, this one; no tiii and nolh tui my 
home. 

A very peculiar sound met with in Kayowe, in some other 
languages of the Mississippi plains, as in Pawnee, Wichita, and 
also in Central California, is of a nasal-dental type and can 
appropriately be rendered by *dl. It alternates with a sound 
pronounced almost like d, t and 1, and in the words where 




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this alternation has taken place, I propose to write these 
latter consonants not as above, but to point them: *d, -t, -1. 
Thus ita/dli boy , may be pronounced also: ita-li, ita*di; 
ko'dlto to bite\ ko'ddo, ko’to (for ko't-to); hirdldi soon: 
hii’ddi, hu'l-ti. 

No word begins with *dl, nor, as far as I have been able to 
ascertain, with 1 or w. 

Consonants susceptible of gemination are: s in mu'ssa six; 
g in onggo oneself , or each other. 

Before we pass over to the vocalic sounds, a remark on pal¬ 
atals may find its place. In the Indo-European languages the 
palatals dsh and tch have originated from gutturals, in the 
Polynesian languages from dentals; but there are Indian lan¬ 
guages in which dsh and tch (tsh) constantly alternate with 
ds and ts, these sounds having originated from s or z, which 
themselves alternate with sh and zh. In Kayowe the sounds 
s, z and ds, ts occur frequently, but sh, zh are rare and there¬ 
fore we may suppose that the assibilation of ds, ts into dsh 
and tch has not yet taken place at all. In this particular the 
language has remained in an archaic, original status, and we 
can conveniently compare the fact, that the Upper German 
dialects have exchanged swimmen and sncpfe for schwimmen 
and schnepfe at an epoch not earlier than the thirteenth cen¬ 
tury of our era. 

VOWELS. 

The vocalic series, together with the long vowels, is as 
follows: 

a: hadel since; a-ome obtained. 

a: pa'dl between; tsa'no reached; a'li to chase. 

a, same as 6: impa'du they had; sa'gum to watch. 

a: kia'nhiup men; a-ato tree. 

e: tupe-igi before; ipate'-i to trap. 

e: tse horse; panse seven. 

e, the primitive vowel: kahieko to-morrow; giiet to paint. 
i: hlgo then; kl meat. 

3 : si'b rain; sl'b-da it rains; konl'ko because. 
i, dumb-sounding: l'msa they placed; ’htsid to stand. 
o: hako to suspend; tohima hungry. 

6 : gokin ten; k’olato elm-tree. 
u: kotu shoulder; gu-upa behind. 
u: kupkie agency; gu'-u to hunt. 
u, dumb-sounding: li'ngta glad; ku' - ba hunted. 


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The two softened vowels 6 and ti (of German etc.) do not 
occur. Every vowel can be geminated when rhetorical effect 
is intended: taki and ta-aki good, handsome. 

Every diphthong is adulterine, that is, every combination 
of two different vowels, which are brought into contact or 
collision, can be pronounced as a monosyllable and as a dis¬ 
syllable: zeiba and zeiba arrow , fa-i and fai land' 

The insertion of the consonantic y before or after i is ob¬ 
served in many terms: ti and tiy all; so i, sso-i, soy, soyi to 
run fast; pula-i and pulayi rabbit; we notice even uyu'ngta 
for u-ungta glad , satisfied; and yie for i-e two. 

Length of vowel is often the result of a contraction or syni- 
zesis. When o’dltem head is pronounced 6'Item, the o may 
be lengthened, though not necessarily, into o’dtem, gii'dl 
buffalo , into god, gu l, tsato-alra-apo through , into tsato- 
ahii/po. By synizesis ko-ibato-ule butterfly becomes koibato'de, 
atsa-uti mother: atso'*ti. 

A vowel may become long also by becoming emphasized: 
amujkiaba'tsin while he was travelling; pa-upado and pa- 
upa/do threefold. 

It is a remarkable feature of Kayowe, that the vowels of 
every word can become nasalized. This nasalization is either 
the one observed in the French an , in, on , 7//z, marked in 
this article by n superior, or it consists in adding n to the 
vowel. Thus we can pronounce: no, nu /, mine: no’, no“, 
non, no’-on, nu, nu 11 , nun, etc. Kohiko because: ko n hiko, 
konhigo, ngohPgo, konl'ko. Ndomtu, house: (lit. “mud- 
house”): ndo n -tu, domtu’h. Pula-i rabbit: pula n i, pu n lani, 
pulayi. 

Among the consonants, g, b an-d some of the dentals, as is 
shown in table of sounds, are also susceptible of nasalization. 

ALTERNATION OF SOUNDS. 

The unbounded freedom pervading the phonetics of an In- 
t dian language can best be studied in the constant permuta¬ 
tion or interchangeability of the sounds which are produced by 
the same vocal organ. Speaking of the languages that came 
to my notice, I can state that an Indian pronounces almost 
every word of his tongue in six, ten or twelve different ways. 
This sufficiently explains and justifies the orthographies, often 
innumerable in their variety, of geographical and tribal names, 
as of Mo began , Seneca , Juniata , Kennebec , Skokomish , and 
also accounts for the fact that words and texts are written so 
differently even by competent investigators, who have made 
linguistic studies. 


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5 

A few examples taken from Kayowe, added to the state¬ 
ments made above, will illustrate this curious feature better 
than any grammatic rules can; it appears from them, that in¬ 
terchange exists, for no apparent cause, between th z gutturals 
k, g, gg, x> k and the spirant h; between the dentals t, d, nd, 
md, and the sounds mentioned in connection with *dl; between 
the labials p, b, f, mb. Among the vowels alternation is ob¬ 
served between a, a, o, u, and their long sounds; between e, 
i, a, and their long sounds; also between the nasalized and 
non-nasalized, and between the clear and the dumb-sounding 
vowels. 

li’hki to travel: ujki, u'jgi. 

du'nde-i mouse: tuntei-, tiintei, du n tei. 

ologi money: olonki, 61 o n gi, olu n ki, olomki. 

ndinda ours: ndi' da, -di*da. 

odl hair: o’l, 6 1, u-6'1. 

onsu to start: honsu, ansu, a n su. 

sawelki mouth: so-elki, so-elgi. 

u'm blood: um, om, a'm. 

oatam wild cat: o-utam, o-utam, o-ata'm. 

monkon nose: mokon, monko, mo n ggon, mo n ko, moko. 

sib’nda it rains: seb’da, seb’nda, sl'bmda, sTb’da. 

taki good: ta aki, to-iki, to-igi, toiki. 

A phonology like this is observed in the majority of Amer¬ 
ican languages and also in most unwritten languages of 
other parts of the world. The great mistake made by per¬ 
sons who have composed books in Indian tongues was to neg¬ 
lect these phonetic laws and to give to every Indian word a 
uniform orthography, just as they saw it done in the literary 
languages. When a standard orthography is allowed to act 
during centuries upon the education of a people, it will no 
doubt exercise some influence upon its pronunciation. But 
Indians do not conform themselves in their daily conversation 
to the orthography laid down in the religious books printed 
for them; the Creek Indians, for whom books were printed in 
a uniform orthography over forty years ago, speak with the 
same phonetic freedom as before, and constantly permute the 
related vowels and consonants with each other. It must 
be borne in mind, that very few of the people who compose 
books in Indian languages and “straighten out” their mode of 
transcription, are Indians; if they were, they would observe 
more closely the immutable laws, which regulate the phono¬ 
logy of their harmonious languages. 


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Even the grammarians and lexicographers who have been 
at work on the illiterate languages have taken no notice of 
this permutability of sounds and other marking characteristics 
of phonology, or if they have, they did not regard them worth 
the attention which they really deserve. It did not enter into 
the views of linguistic purification of many of these authors to 
enter upon this topic, thinking that the languages of rude na¬ 
tions have to conform, as much as possible, with the standard 
of European tongues, which are not only of totally different 
structure, but have been polished and sometimes grammat¬ 
ically impoverished by a literary development of many cen¬ 
turies. 

The scientific value of studies made upon the interchangea¬ 
bility of sounds consists in revealing to us the formation of 
the dialects of a language and of many other processes, the 
knowledge of which will enable us to solve the most intricate 
problems of etymologic science. 

OTHER PHONOLOGIC NOTES. 

Final syllables of Kayowe words terminate equally often in 
consonants as in vowels; syllables which are not final usually 
terminate in a simple or nasalized vowel. 

Of other phonetic peculiarities of Kayowe I mention the 
shifting of the accent from syllable to syllable for rhetoric 
reasons, even from one vowel of a diphthong to the other: 
o-atam and o-ata/m wild cat. 

Since the language has a tendency to monosyllabism, apher- 
esis is frequent: pu'mda spot, Ipu'mda and pumda spotted . 
Apocope is still more frequent: tegi the whole night , for 
te-i giaki. 

The total number of sounds is considerable; for if we count 
in with the short vowels those with the long sound, we find 
38, and with the nasalized vowels 43 sounds, just as many as 
there are in the English language. 




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